


An Aesthetic Decision

by sarken



Category: Fake News RPF, Real News RPF
Genre: Gen, Humor, Pundit Round Table
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-29
Updated: 2008-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarken/pseuds/sarken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen asks Keith to hit him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Aesthetic Decision

**Author's Note:**

> An improbable explanation of what exactly, happened to Keith's glasses and Stephen's face during the last week of June 2008.

"Hit me."

Startled, Keith dropped his fork, which clattered loudly against his plate before falling onto his lap. "Not that I'm not delighted by the request," Keith said, placing his fork on the rim of his plate, "but why the hell would I want to hit you? Wait. No, don't answer that. I'm recalling, vaguely, an incident with a duck."

Across the table, Jon did a poor job of using a napkin to hide his snickering.

Keith scowled at Jon. "Oh, so that was you?"

"And Anderson," Jon said, equal parts proud and defensive. The prank had been masterfully executed, but Keith was a very large man in possession of two extra vertebrae. Jon wasn't entirely sure that was something he should have put himself up against. "He got the duck."

"Leave me out of this," Anderson said. "You stole my Blackberry. Jeff Corwin got you the duck because he thought you were me."

Jon smirked. "It's not often I get mistaken for a Vanderbilt. The reception on Corwin's phone must suck."

"But back to the original problem," Stephen cut in. "I still need someone to hit me, and despite my innocence in all duck-related crimes, Olbermann here remains my best bet. He's easily the most masculine of anyone at this table -- he's got the word 'man' right there in his name, for Pete's sake -- so he's the one I want."

"Is this some sort of kinky sex thing?" Anderson asked, his voice achieving levels of inquisitive perkiness best left to anchors of morning talk shows.

Keith pushed his plate toward the center of the table as visions of putting Stephen over his knee flashed through his mind. "Now I am most assuredly not hitting him."

Stephen shot Anderson a sideways glance. "I don't want him to blow me; I want him to deck me."

"Thank God we don't eat in public anymore," Jon mumbled, but he glanced nervously around Anderson's apartment, half expecting James Carville to be lurking behind the curtains.

"I understand what it is you want from me," Keith said. "But _why_?"

"Because I'm tired of Anderson being the ruggedly handsome one."

Keith stared at Stephen for a moment. "You're not well," he observed, as if he were making a profound revelation.

"We're just getting around to this conclusion?" Anderson asked incredulously. "Without provocation, the man just asked you to hit him, and no one stops to think something might be the slightest bit wrong with him until he says that I'm ruggedly handsome? And I realize I'm probably shooting myself in the foot here, but why am I ruggedly handsome all of a sudden?"

"Facial scars are very masculine, Anderson," Stephen said, gesturing to his own unscarred face.

"You do realize that was skin cancer and not an aesthetic decision, right?" Anderson turned to Jon, a look of consternation written across his features. "He does realize that, doesn't he?"

"Ignore him when he gets like this," Jon advised, picking up his fork and returning his attention to his long-forgotten salad. The lettuce was soggy from the dressing, but he scooped up a leaf just the same. "If you don't, he'll keep talking until you hang him in the Smithsonian or put him on the Democratic ticket or give him a Peabody. Or, in this case, a black eye."

"You want me to hit you so you have facial scars?" Keith asked. He patted down his pockets. "Sorry, looks like I left my brass knuckles at home this evening. Why don't you just walk into a door like everyone else?"

"Because I want you to hit me."

"With each passing moment, that is seeming more and more like the inevitable conclusion to this conversation."

"I think we're all pretty eager to beat the crap out of him at this point," Jon agreed around a mouthful of limp lettuce. He glanced at Stephen and added, "No offense."

"I thought you were ignoring him," Anderson said.

"Turns out that's not as much fun," Jon said. He frowned at the remains of his salad and set his fork down, not eager to chase thin strips of carrots around his plate for the remainder of the conversation. "Maybe we should move this discussion to the living room for the duration, possibly break out the key to the liquor cabinet."

"I think I like the sound of that," Anderson agreed, standing and beginning to collect the dishes.

"What the hell are you doing?" Keith demanded, watching Anderson carry the dishes to the sink.

"Huh? I'm washing the dishes," he said, turning on the faucet.

"Didn't you just cook?" Stephen prompted, immediately picking up on Keith's train of thought, despite that being something he generally tried to avoid at all cost.

"Uh, yeah," Anderson said, frowning as he ran a plate under the water. "I generally cook -- well, buy things and reheat them, at any rate -- when I have company. Why?"

Keith started stacking the remaining dishes. "I'll get the dishes."

"I was just going to rinse and load the dishwasher. It's not like this is the 1950s and I have to wash them by hand or anything."

"Believe it or not," Keith said, grabbing the clean silverware in one hand, "I can load a dishwasher while you sit in the other room and entertain your other guests."

"Rinse first, then load," Anderson corrected. "And, really, it's no trouble. It'll just take me two seconds and--"

"_Shoo_," Keith said, making the corresponding gesture with one hand.

Anderson and Stephen gaped at Keith while Jon said, "Please don't ever do that again."

"I'm reconsidering your status as the most masculine man here," Stephen said.

"Good," Keith said, moving the dishes to the sink with a loud clatter.

Anderson winced. "If you need anything..."

"We'll be fine," Stephen interrupted.

"_We_?" Keith sputtered.

"I have to make sure you still have the desire, if not the actual ability, to lay me out on my back," Stephen responded, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows as he headed for the sink.

Jon grabbed Anderson's elbow and started to pull him toward the living room. "Let's go. Liquor cabinet. And possibly a camera."

Anderson kept glancing nervously over his shoulder. "Don't break anything," he pleaded. "And, seriously, just yell if you need anything. Like the tablets for the dishwasher. Or if you don't know where the silverware goes. Or--"

"Anderson, they both have kitchens," Jon said, pulling him entirely out of the room. "And they've been in yours before. They'll be--"

A loud thud and a barely-muffled exclamation of "Motherfucker!" stopped Jon in the middle of his sentence, and he and Anderson exchanged worried looks. They sprung into action when a second thud was followed by the crunching sound of a shoe meeting glass.

When they got back in the kitchen, Stephen was leaning against the counter with both hands over his face, and Jon could see a trickle of blood between Stephen's fingers.

Jon and Anderson both turned to glare at Keith, who was currently standing on his own glasses.

"Don't look at me like that," he said. Although he couldn't actually see how Jon and Anderson were looking at him, he had a more than decent hunch just the same. "I didn't hit him. It was the cabinet. And it was an accident."

"In pain here," Stephen said, sounding severely congested.

"Shit," Anderson swore, practically leaping for the freezer. He grabbed a bag of frozen vegetables and held it out to Stephen. "What hurts? Never mind. Just put this on it."

Jon grabbed the vegetables. "Wrap it in a towel first. Where's a towel?"

Wordlessly, Keith handed over the mostly-dry dishtowel that had been sitting by the sink, and Jon quickly wrapped the towel around the makeshift icepack.

"Move your hands," Jon instructed, nudging Stephen's arm.

"No," Stephen said.

"Move your hands or I'm having Olbermann move them for you," Jon said.

Reluctantly, Stephen took his hands away from his face, revealing a long line of dark blood running down over his nose.

Keith didn't need his glasses to tell that there was a good deal of blood. "Fuck," he said, and the word almost sounded like an apology.

Jon swallowed hard. "Let's get your glasses off."

"They're not embedded in my skull?" Stephen managed.

"Shut up," Jon said. "Think you can do it?"

"No," Stephen said bluntly, leaning more heavily against the counter as the room began to tilt.

"Hold this," Jon said, thrusting the icepack at Anderson. Gently, Jon grasped the earpieces of Stephen's shattered glasses and guided them off Stephen's face. Then he leaned in to take a closer look at Stephen's cut. "I think you might be right about your glasses being embedded in your skull. There's a piece of glass in there."

"Ice would be good," Stephen said, extending his arm and making grabby hands in Anderson's general direction.

"Not until we get the glass out," Anderson said. "There's tweezers in the bathroom."

"Give him the icepack," Keith said. "He just got his glasses jammed back into his face. He needs it for that, not the cut."

Anderson handed over the icepack. "I'll go get the tweezers. And the first aid kit."

Gingerly, Stephen touched the icepack to his face, where bruises were already starting to form under his eyes. "He's not getting near me with those tweezers," Stephen said.

"You want me to do it?" Jon asked, setting what was left of Stephen's glasses on the counter.

"No."

"Keith, then?"

"No," Keith said before Stephen could answer. "I am not adding injury to injury. In case you haven't noticed, my glasses are also shattered. I'd probably stick the tweezers in his eyeball."

"What the hell happened to your glasses, anyway?" Jon asked, still staring at Stephen's wound. He tugged lightly at the skin around the cut, trying to get a better view of the glass, but Stephen smacked his hand away.

"I got hit with the rebound," Keith explained. "His head must be made of rubber."

Anderson returned in that moment, first aid kit in hand. "You should probably sit down," he said, gesturing to one of the kitchen chairs.

"I think I'm just going to take him to the E.R.," Jon said.

"You sure?"

"Yes," Jon and Stephen said in unison.

"He'll probably need stitches," Keith offered. Then he winced at the thought. "I'm--"

Stephen waved him off. "So now I'm ruggedly handsome. I'll live. I hope."

:end:


End file.
